That about covers it, but I’ll connect the dots. According to a poll conducted in July, nearly three-quarters of Americans think voters should be required to show a government-issued photo ID. Moreover 48 percent think voter fraud is a major problem, and an additional 33 percent think it’s a minor problem. (The poll defined voter fraud as “people voting who are not eligible to do so, or voters casting multiple ballots.) Americans are also concerned about voter suppression, but less so: 41 percent say it’s a major problem, and 32 percent say it’s a minor problem.
Presumably the fear of fraud drives support of voter ID laws.

And yet, according to the Post story mentioned above: “A new nationwide analysis of more than 2,000 cases of alleged election fraud over the past dozen years shows that in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which has prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tougher voter ID laws, was virtually nonexistent.”

Virtually nonexistent. And that’s an understatement.

“The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000. With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.”

Whenever I write on this subject, readers invariably bring up other forms of fraud, like alleged cases of absentee ballot or registration fraud or improper vote counting. The words “Acorn” and “Mickey Mouse” tend to come up—though no one seems to mention that Orange County election officials rejected Mr. Mouse’s application, and he was never officially registered to vote.

Regardless, voter ID laws would do nothing to prevent such problems; they would only prevent impersonation fraud…which doesn’t happen.